Illinois falconer on the hobby

Last week the Chicago Tribune ran the story Falconer a rare bird in Illinois. It was accompanied by the video below, showing a licensed falconer working with his bird, a Red-tailed Hawk.

In handling education birds of prey there is overlap with some of the equipment, housing and techniques used by falconers. I’m not interested in the hobby itself but found the video interesting – although I don’t agree with everything mentioned by the falconer in the video or text. 🙂 According to the article there are 4,500 falconers in the United States, with 148 in Illinois. Falconry has been around for hundreds of years, coming to Europe from the Middle or Far East in about AD 400.